[Footnote 74: Cf. Watts: “Echo
Personalities,” for several illustrations of
this law.]

[Footnote 75: Livingstone: “Mary Slessor
of Calabar,” p. 131.]

[Footnote 76: “The Cloud of Unknowing,”
Cap, 40.]

[Footnote 77: “And very often did He say
unto me, ’Bride and daughter, sweet art thou
unto Me, I love thee better than any other who is in
the valley of Spoleto.’” ("The Divine
Consolations of Blessed Angela of Foligno,”
p. 160.)]

[Footnote 78: “The Spirit,” edited
by B.H. Streeter, p. 93.]

[Footnote 79: Cf. B. Russell: “The
Analysis of Mind,” Cap. 2.]

[Footnote 80: Op. cit., Cap. 6.]

[Footnote 81: “Cloud of Unknowing,”
Cap. 37.]

[Footnote 82: Ruysbroeck: “The Sparkling
Stone,” Cap. 9.]

[Footnote 83: Lauda 91.]

[Footnote 84: Op. cit., Cap. 13.]

CHAPTER IV

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

(II) CONTEMPLATION AND SUGGESTION

In the last chapter we considered what the modern
analysis of mind had to tell us about the nature of
the spiritual life, the meaning of sin and of salvation.
We now go on to another aspect of this subject:
namely, the current conception of the unconscious mind
as a dominant factor of our psychic life, and of the
extent and the conditions in which its resources can
be tapped, and its powers made amenable to the direction
of the conscious mind. Two principal points must
here be studied. The first is the mechanism of
that which is called autistic thinking and its relation
to religious experience: the second, the laws
of suggestion and their bearing upon the spiritual
life. Especially must we consider from this point
of view the problems which are resumed under the headings
of prayer, contemplation, and grace. We shall
find ourselves compelled to examine the nature of
meditation and recollection, as spiritual persons
have always practised them; and, to give, if we can,
a psychological account of many of their classic conceptions
and activities. We shall therefore be much concerned
with those experiences which are often called mystical,
but which I prefer to call in general contemplative
and intuitive; because they extend, as we shall find,
without a break from the simplest type of mental prayer,